Remember how you said "Vaina misrepresenst everything" and I said "pot, meet kettle"? Yeah, that's exactly why.
That's some impressive hypocrisy. Really, bravo.

Learn to embrace spell checker and you got a deal.

It's not as if you don't do the same. For every person Vaina attacks for being right, you attack for being left. And if you don't agree with them, then you take out your frustrations by going ad hominem.
You think somebody's being an idiot? Let them embarrass themselves and don't bother reducing yourself to their level.
Sick of being name-called and downrepped? Yeah, nobody cares about rep. And the trolls have been namecalling me and plenty of others for years. The only difference with you is that it's political, and mind you, you haven't even gotten into the negs yet like many other people. Let that get to you and you become the next gunsynd.
Abuse and harassment? Not much worse than your basic argument of "this forum is full of a bunch of SJW crybabies who need to learn to grow up!" And apparently, if they don't join you, you're wrong.
How was he giving Starmaker a free pass?! Just because he didn't say anything, he's somehow approving of it? This is what I mean. If we don't somehow join you in violently attacking who you want us to attack, we're horrible people.
You get mad at Breja for wanting to start a new thread, you get mad at me for trying to keep the peace, you overanalyze peoples' posts looking to get angry...as many valid, true, and intelligent points as you have, we can barely hear them over the sound of your raging half the time.
Silence does not indicate consent. If it did, that would be to say we approve of Tauto or ciomalau or Kleetus just because everybody's smart enough to ignore them.
Don't even bother. I tried it already. It ended the same way rather quickly.

Oh, it's even better than that. I didn't "not say anything" I clearly called her out for her insults. And not for the first or tenth time.

Yeah, I figured as much. Still, I hope Fables himself starts one. I could easily see how this show here could discourage him from any contact with us, but I hope it will not be so.

The best thing would be to reboot the forum like a comic book universe tangled beyond all repair. New forum that the higher-ups actually know how it works, moderation limited to only the most clear-cut cases of trolling and abuse, but in those cases enforced sternly, and a clean slate start. There's so much toxicity in so many threads, it's impossible to get free of it. We need to burn it out. Totally clean start. Oh, and a separate sub-forum for political discussions, with everything political or semi-political immediately purged from General Discussion.

..a colloquium I was in for a while, that ended up being a bit larger than the usual five people, had a pretty good rule: if you couldn't disagree with someone without resorting to some social suppression technique (and were unable to to explain the way you employed it and how it suppressed the opponent unreasonably afterwards) - you were sentenced to read Wittgenstein for a day.

Worked great. The worst and always most appropriate punishment there is for people who can't conduct themselves in a discussion.

And you jump in and call both sides fools just like Breja. As I said, there are 3 sides, the 3rd are people like you and Breja who jump in to demonize the other two. Welcome to the Triangle of Hate. Do you really think jumping into every conflict and criticizing and calling out everyone else is really helping? I think someone told you as much in the last thread when you did this.

Rep doesn't matter? Really? And how many have left in part because of it? It's easy to say, but the truth is that isn't exactly true. People see their posts deleted and "Low Rated", you think that makes them happy? How has ignoring rep or advising people ignore rep helped the forum so far? I know you've made enough posts about your own downrepping too, but keep lying to yourself about how it doesn't bother you...It is a problem on this forum. The issue needs to be addressed. People are leaving because of it. Sweeping it under the rug has not helped...

As I said, issues were being discussed, the thread got a little derailed but both of you and others thought it was a great idea to chastise all participants by blanketly throwing everyone in the thread under the bus and without addressing the actual issues being discussed. In other words, further derailing the thread. So don't act like you are providing some great insight...

Jumping into the thread to essentially call everyone jerks like all of you did, made you one too. Welcome to the Deplorable Club.

Uh, no. I'm not calling both sides fools. Everybody has a difference of opinion, and that's a good thing. What I'm saying is that we could try to solve things in a more rational and peaceful matter. And that is, of course, my opinion. So that's a bad thing?

Yes, I do. And that someone was you, if I recall correctly. I want to remind people that there's actually an issue besides just slinging politics back and forth. And I didn't just stop to criticize, either. I offered a practical and direct suggestion about getting rid of the known trolls and making a politics subforum.
I disagree. There's even been multiple scripts for the sake of hiding it.
I only "notice" it to make the occasional joke. All I honestly care about is knowing the community likes me, and so far, I've had nothing to show me otherwise.
I seriously do not think anybody actually has left over it. Gunsynd is the only example that even comes to mind, unless you can think of some.
"a little derailed" is a huge understatement. And again, I did address the actual issues being discussed.
Oooh! Cool! Do I get a badge? I want a badge!

Suffice it to say, I feel the rep issue is far more important than most are giving credit to. It's been mentioned many many times, and many times by people who no longer are here. Just the fact that so many talk about it and that so many feel the need to "correct" them and "remind" them how "unimportant" it is, speaks volumes to it's real importance.

The truth is it bothers them or they wouldn't be saying anything about it in the first place. Dismissing their concerns out of hand may shut them up about it, but deep down, it still bothers them and, if anything, make them feel the rest of the forum doesn't really care about their concerns.

As to the rest:
Yeah, I stand by "a little derailed", that is a small one for these forums...I've seen help topics with more posts before someone actually tried to answer OPs question.
As to the badge, it should be included as part of the Winter Sale badges. I think the vast majority of forum posters can make a case for earning one. Just give one for making a forum post...

The problem with that suggestion is what constitute a political discussion ?

Personally a couple of years ago my opinion/suggestion would have been simple : only authorize discussions about games (or the subject matter of the forum) on the forum and ban all discussions about politics and religion as those never end well

That's a rule that had a couple of communities I took part at the time and for the most part it worked well.

But nowadays, where politics are forced into everything, how to you make distinction ? Is the gamergate thread a politic or game discussion ? is the outrage about a game not featuring enough character of a certain skin color (or too many of another one) a political or a game related discussion ? etc... the distinction is no longer easy to make.

The first comment here : https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/5fzkgc/nick_monroe_utterly_evicerates_matt_lees/
All sources cited.

The crux of that issue is that people need to have a decent bullshit filter. The problem is many people don't want to go through the effort of using one, they'd rather a piece of software or a chat moderator do the leg work for them. That's why I don't like block scripts and ignore lists. It's just a cheap way out for people who'd rather not be bothered with ideas or opinions that they don't agree with. And to keep myself from falling into that same trap I make sure to always at least stay on target and engage both with those that I agree with and those that I don't.

But for those that would rather take the easy way out with block apps and ignore lists, all I can say is good luck in life. Good luck finding a spouse, a boss, a neighbor or friends that you will always agree with. The real world doesn't operate under social media rules. That's also why all these half-hearted attempts at self moderation don't work here, nor will they. Rep points and stars don't count for shit when everyone is fired up on a cause and wants the world to know how they feel. It's all or nothing, baby. We either have an open forum to discuss ideas, or we don't. Moving and organizing the forums is one thing, but even a reserved private section for politics/religion/whatever is going to get people riled up. I guess it's just incrementalism. Some here would like to see those changes, as they would be more step towards removing 'harmful opinions' from the forum altogether. Ultimately it's just different people with different ideas trying desperately to form their own order out of the natural chaos of human interaction.

But what do I know? I'm just a woman, gay and minority hating alt-right hate group terrorist leader.

Personally I find it a very bad idea, it's supposed to be a discussion forum, if half the member block the other half there is no discussion left, constructive or not.

IMHO the problem we are currently having either on this forum or on the Internet in general is that peoples have become too keen of lock themselves in their very own echo chamber refusing to even listen to somebody with a different opinion.

Well, in better-coded forums, there's usually a "move" function so a thread can be shifted over if it gets derailed into politics or clearly hits the political point.
If anything, assuming the distinction can't be made, then just let it happen so long as people can discuss it civilly. There's much to be learned from differences of opinion, but not from mudslinging.
You do have a point. It does drive away the new members (the old ones are typically thick-skinned enough to pay no attention) or people who get attacked seemingly out of nowhere. The thought is usually along the lines of "Oh, no! Does this mean the community is mad at me? Why aren't they saying anything?" and I'm able to get past that since I already know I'm fine with most of these people.
But seriously, anybody who's been around for more than, like, 3 months semi-actively typically is smart enough to tell that it means nothing and doesn't really mention it much outside of joking. What's sadder are the people who try to abuse it because it makes them feel powerful somehow.
Either way, it needs either a desperate overhaul or to be done away with altogether.
At least those are usually done in a humorous way, and 9/10 times you'll have somebody who eventually steps up and answers the question.
This one seems to be full of almost irredeemable bitterness.
"Gary? Are you out there? Add me!"

To be honest, if somebody's childish enough to use a block button or ignore feature just to quiet people whose opinions they disagree with, I'm not sure they'd bother listening to somebody with a different opinion anyways, with or without it.

I can't really understand why that would be.
Edit: Just a few seconds off the post merge! Bah!

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